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Comment by gjsman-1000 | Hacker News Reader

View it this way. If I’m a new user to Linux, KDE tends to come with far more apps than GNOME, with names that are often so opaque every app is a mystery. And not in a good way.

“Oh… I thought Konquerer might be a video game, involving Conkers.”

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You nailed it: GNOME targets new users. KDE doesn't. The advantage of having unique names is that you can actually talk about them, and that includes finding documentation and solving problems via a search engine.

Try finding anythng useful when your query is based on a generic name, e.g. "document viewer crashes".

> GNOME targets new users.

Which is of course the correct strategy in the exploding-growth market of not only Linux Desktop, but desktop computing in general.

...wait a second...

> Try finding anythng useful when your query is based on a generic name, e.g. "document viewer crashes".

Gets tragically hilarious when the document viewer program changed between release.

If only in the menu there was a description of what it does, written perhaps just under the name… oh… wait! THERE IS!

What about having it listed with the actual name, but when you're viewing it in the program launcher you have a hint in gray? Something like this:

- Okular Document Viewer

This is roughly how it works now. Also, searching matches on its description.

Sounds good! I don't use either anymore so I wouldn't know.

Applications in every KDE system menu and search box result list have descriptors about what the application does that follow the application name. Didn't mean to be rude but it's honestly not hard to read the descriptor textsbefore clicking on something.

Nobody that would be confused by this would ever use Konqueror. Chrome or Firefox, those are the choices.

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